Once I Believed
by KatiKat
Summary: It hurts to lose your ideals. Relena´s POV, 1+2, reference to past NCS


**Once I Believed...**  
  
  
by KatiKat  
  
  
  
Once I believed in justice, peace and truth...  
  
I can´t even believe how naive I was. I was just a teenager, I didn´t know anything about how the world functioned. I lived my life sheltered from pain and suffering, from danger and bad people. When the war came, it took me by surprise. I saw people get killed, but I still believed that anything could be solved peacefully, that killing led to even more killing, that this was no solution...  
  
I survived the wars and my belief in peace survived with me. I was convinced that with the end of the war, the violence, the madness of mindless killing and hurting would end...  
  
How naive...  
  
Naive...  
  
And it hurt when I was faced with the reality.  
  
It had taken Duo and Heero getting hurt for me to really open my eyes for the first time in my life.  
  
They gave up their dangerous life after the wars. They led a peaceful, quiet life together. When I finally overcame my childish infatuation with Heero, I was able to enjoy seeing them together. They were so right together, they just fit perfectly. They led the life they wished for during the wars.  
  
It was a hate crime. They were gay and ex-Gundam pilots. That was enough for the men to take them and hurt them. They had held them captive for two weeks before the Preventers, with Wufei in charge, found them. They were in really bad shape. Broken bones, contusions, scrapes, deep bruises... They were beaten, starved... raped.  
  
That was probably what shocked me the most. Until then rape was just a word for me. Something I read about in the newspapers, not something I thought I would ever encounter in my life. I saw the damage such a crime could do to a person with my own eyes back then... I can still see the picture of them naked, covered in blood every time I close my eyes. And it still makes me nauseous.  
  
They concentrated on Duo. Heero said they thought he was "pretty like a girl with that hair and body of his". They hurt him badly and made Heero watch. What sort of animal would do something like that? Only one - human.  
  
Duo had been in a coma for a week, his recovery going very slowly. The doctors didn´t allow anybody besides Heero to see him. And when they allowed visitors, he didn´t want to see anybody. Neither of them wanted to. I could understand that, we all could.  
  
In the end, maybe they would start to heal but...  
  
But then their case went to the court and everything went downhill from then on. No matter what evidence we had, the men were released - they found a backdoor in one of the laws. Everybody, including the judge, knew they were guilty. But still they got free...  
  
The last day of the trial was the last time I ever saw Heero. I saw him watching the people who hurt him and Duo so badly walk away, laughing at him, taunting him. He didn´t let them raise any reaction from him. He was cold as ice. The Perfect Soldier was back and for the first time in my life he really scared me.  
  
I let him go that day. I thought that he would calm down, that I would talk to him later, maybe the next day. I was wrong.  
  
The next day Duo disappeared from the hospital... Their house was sold...  Their things disappeared... Nothing was left behind. It was as if they never even existed.  
  
I never saw either of them again. I suspected that the other pilots knew where their comrades were hiding, but they never said anything and after some time I stopped asking...  
  
In the next year and half all the men that hurt my friends were killed. Tortured, murdered, executed. Everybody knew who did it and nobody said a word about it. Even Quatre, our sweet Quatre. When I told him about the killings, his only answer was "good" and a twisted smile graced his lips.  
  
One after the other, all of them disappeared. Quatre and Trowa were first, then Wufei and some time later even my brother. I don´t know where they went. I tried to find them, but they did a good job of covering their tracks. In the end, I stopped looking for them. It was useless. If they didn´t want to be found they wouldn´t.  
  
At first I didn´t understand why they did it. But then I tried to look at the world through their eyes and what I saw I didn´t like at all.  
  
There was no peace, no justice, no truth in the world. The people still killed each other, hate crimes were a common thing, intrigue, cheating, corruption... The world they fought for didn´t exist anymore. Maybe it never did. And suddenly I felt like a dinosaur, watching the young politicians get corrupted, fight for money and   
power. There were no ideals left. The world as I knew it was long gone and so I went too...  
  
I have my little house with even smaller garden now. I take care of my cat and canary, I water the plants and babysit the neighbors´ newborn. My new world looks peaceful, but behind the windows a new war is brewing. New mobile suits are being built, new soldiers recruited, a war campaign goes through the news. I don´t understand why they are actually fighting. I don´t even know who is fighting whom.  
  
It´ll begin soon and I hope I won´t be here for too long to see it. I´m old now. My life is gone and I didn´t achieve anything. I fought and lost. My ideals are dead. I don´t know where the others are but I hope they are not around anymore to see this. The madness they went through is repeating itself, more children will die, more   
lives will be lost... The people didn´t learn anything. Anything at all...  
  
Suddenly I feel tired, so incredibly tired. I will go and take a nap. And with a bit of luck I won´t wake up to see the world surrender to the madness. With a bit of luck...  
  
Once I believed in justice, peace and truth...  
  
But now I don´t...  
  
  
The End


End file.
